[right][h1][color=#d5bcba]ENGINES OF HONOR[/color][/h1]
[i]A fantasy steampunk adventure set in the world of Andermonde
All setting credit belongs to [url=https://www.patreon.com/cw/RedQuills]Ryan O’Connor of the Red Quills[/url][/i][/right]
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[h2][color=#d5bcba]❧ THE PREMISE[/color][/h2]
[quote][i]A tourney is held to make knights. Two rivals are handed to opposing masters as weapons in a feud neither of them started. To win the oath, each must break the other — and survive a final trial that cannot be passed alone.[/i][/quote]
Once a generation, Claireville fills to bursting. The Chevaliers de la Monde, the stateless order of knights that kings defer to and no nation commands, open their ranks and call the world to prove itself. What looks like pageantry is a crucible: five days of trials, oaths, and constant judgment, where steel is the least of what's measured.

But no one is knighted without a patron, and the patrons arrived in Claireville with knives already drawn. Two of them, old enemies, have each found a champion. You are one. Your rival is the other. The lists are rigged so you must ruin each other to rise.

[h2][color=#d5bcba]❧ TWO CHAMPIONS, ONE RIVALRY[/color][/h2]
▸ [b]THE FAVORED[/b] — [I]the one the order already expects to win.[/I]
Trained in proper salles, fluent in its rituals and its social game. Backed by an established power that treats you as an asset — total support, on a tightening leash, because it wants a Chevalier it owns. Your cage is expectation. Everyone's already decided you'll win, so victory earns you nothing you don't already have; one stumble could cost you everything. Your goal: to be knighted on merit no one can say was bought for you. 

▸ [b]THE INTERLOPER[/b] — [I]the one who shouldn't be here at all.[/I]
An underdog plucked from somewhere the Chevaliers were never meant to recruit. Self-taught or hard-taught, you fight in ways the salle never sanctioned, and your place in the lists is a provocation by itself. A faction at war with the Favored's patron has put you here. They don't believe in you. You're a battering ram, and they want the rival house humiliated more than they want you crowned. Your cage is precarity. One accusation, one "unsuitable" ruling, and you're gone — and everyone's waiting for it. Your goal: to force the gate open, prove merit beats pedigree, and make the order admit it. 

[b]What the two of them have in common:[/b] both are being spent by patrons who see a weapon where a person is standing. Both are trying to hold an oath the war keeps demanding they break. Each is the other's obstacle — and, by the end, the only one in Claireville who understands them.

[h2][color=#d5bcba]❧ SCOPE & TONE[/color][/h2]
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[*] [b]Action-forward.[/b] Trials, duels, sabotage, the arena. The intrigue is the spice; the competition is the meal.
[*] [b]Standalone or ongoing.[/b] The tourney is a complete arc on its own. But the world is wide: smuggling cartels, a colonized New World bleeding magic into the old, the duties of knighthood that call our characters far beyond Claireville, the fallout of an honorable loss (or dishonorable win.) If we both want it, this can extend well past the final trial.
[*] [b]Romance optional.[/b] On the table if the chemistry is there; never required. I am currently open to MxF, FxF, or MxM pairings. Rivalry first; whatever it becomes, second.
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[h2][color=#d5bcba]❧ ABOUT ME[/color][/h2]
I'm Antlers! Canadian (MST). 34 years old and prefer my partners to be 25+ for that reason. I'm a woman (she/her), but write male or female characters with no preference for writing one over the other. I write morally-grey fantasy for grown-ups: high stakes, slow-burn tension, and characters who do the wrong thing for good reasons.

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[*] [b]My pace.[/b] I'm on medical leave at the moment (awaiting surgery), so I have the time and post often — once a day to every other day, barring a flare-up that takes me out. I'll never rush you for a reply.
[*] [b]Expect mature content.[/b] Violence, the costs of empire and colonialism, moral grey on grey. Smut optional; I'm just as happy with fade-to-black.
[*] [b]Face claims.[/b] Actors if we use them, but descriptions alone also suffice. 
[*] [b]Where.[/b] OOC by PM or Discord; IC by PM, thread, Google Docs, or Ellipsus.
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[h2][color=#d5bcba]❧ WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR[/color][/h2]
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[*] An active and engaged partner who [i]progresses the story[/I]: bring me new twists and turns, raise the stakes, take a scene somewhere I didn't plan or expect. 
[*] Advanced / literate; quality over quantity. Third person, past tense. Characters who feel like real, complicated [i]human beings[/i]. The good shit.
[*] Communication: I can stay engaged with a story as long as I am not left endlessly wondering when a post is coming. In an hour? Next week? Next month? Great! [i]Tell me that[/i], and I'll happily wait. 
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[center][h3][color=#d5bcba]Questions? Ideas? Eager to toss your hat into the ring? Don't be shy! Shoot me a PM. ✨[/color][/h3][/center]
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